Any suggestions on a good ARPG game ?

"

Mikrotherion wrote:

Oh... I just realized no one mentioned Wolcen.
Haven't played in ages but I found it quite good - and since then a few updates were added so perhaps now the campaign has a real ending.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

"

Mikrotherion wrote:

Oh... I just realized no one mentioned Wolcen.
Haven't played in ages but I found it quite good - and since then a few updates were added so perhaps now the campaign has a real ending.

It does have a real ending now and the post-game loop makes more sense, and on PC the game is pretty stable, especially offline. I've been farming easy karma on the Wolcen sub giving long unhappy feedback on the untenably bad PS4/5 version -- but I still play it with each incremental patch towards 'barely acceptable' because fuck it, I paid for it and couch Wolcen is great when it works. On PC, I do recommend it as a basic d3/PoE intersection with a decent story in which your character has an established place in the world (and thus something to lose), excellent range of skills, *meaningful* basic attack combos, a unique rogue-lite post-game loop (that you can play with new characters, praise be), clearly expensive music, so-so voice acting (two of the leads are very good though) -- but a buggy as fuck final chapter that was clearly rushed out the door and incredibly easy to break mechanics where a few skills really tower over the others. It's a useless game for a min/maxer (as I expect many Exiles are, whether they realise it or not) but a lot of fun for an altoholic who can see several builds in any one skill that has elemental damage variants, aoe changer, and other behavioral shifts based on chosen upgrades. My spreadsheet of 78 characters can attest to that.

I wasn't going to bring Wolcen up because I always do but at 3.2k hours I may be a little biased, so I'm glad someone else did.

My core ARPG recommendation remains Warhammer 40k Inquisitor Martyr. It regularly goes on sale, has a nice mix of action and rpg, does a good job conveying the grimdark of the future with very functional if unspectacular storytelling and worldbuilding...and basically remains the only ARPG where you can use a boltgun to fuck up a giant Daemonspawn while your character intones with absolutely not a hint of irony, 'Fooor the Emperor!'. Plenty of build options, nice pseudo-open world for mission selection (a star chart, basically), good crafting, a map-like system where you can modify missions for extra difficulty/extra reward...just a solid ARPG these days after a rocky start and a few necessary overhauls. Probably the biggest issue would be all skills are tied to gear -- 2 per item, 4 per loadout (not including equippable spells for the caster classes).

Dual null rod Assassin is essentially a mage-slaying dominatrix and she knows it and yeah, she's just fucking great. Whoever told her voice actress to go full ham on the zealotry and condescension got it right. Not even the recently introduced Sister of Battle can match her for gleeful delivery of pain unto the heretics, the xeno and the unclean.

Spoiler

I don't even normally LIKE Warhammer or WH40k. Too many people forget it's a satire on authoritarianism, eugenics, unchecked AI and xenophobia.

Sacred 2 remains the best truly open world ARPG with Blind Guardian and fourth-wall breaking dialogue. And fucking heaps of quests. And very unique classes. It's quite good with the community patch, and *really* good with a few other popular mods that rebalance the skills and restore the physics for kills (these things matter). Less valuable as a PoE replacement than a Diablo IV pre-game drink.

Torchlight Infinite is *fucking awful* if you're expecting the charm and tightness of Torchlight but eh, Chinese-made f2p Diablo3 wannabe is gonna wannabe. I find it generic and uninspired. If you are going to play a f2p Diablo3 wannabe, Undecember is superior to Torchlight Infinite in most ways. Far more technically impressive, better skill system, more cinematic, better aesthetics...I mean, Torchlight without Matt Uelmen? Why bother?

Titan Quest is my daily mobile ARPG. Probably a bit dated on PC but I still prefer it over its younger, smarter sibling Grim Dawn. The ancient world just more interesting to me than...whatever Grim Dawn is. Cowboys and Zombies by way of Lovecraft, I guess. Although the skill system in GD is absolutely amazing -- the devotion system's augmentation to existing skills is really cool.

Honestly I'd say 'get whatever's on sale' because none of them are going to stand up to PoE for a seasoned Exile and they all mostly scratch the same itch in a fairly superficial, lightweight way. Kill shit get shit kill more shit.